


Turn Me West

by Nopride4531



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Conversations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Crisis, Gen, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28626075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nopride4531/pseuds/Nopride4531
Summary: "You're dying, Mr. Morgan," she says simply. "There's not much more to it."
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Turn Me West

"You're dying, Mr. Morgan," she says simply. "There's not much more to it."

Another cough, rattling and scraping raw lungs like nails and sandpaper. More than that, far more than that, the tang of metal in his mouth, like the lead of a bullet he'd evaded for years. 

"Yeah." He clears his chest, spits on the ground. "Guess I wish there was... more to it, I mean."

"Don't we all."

Arthur tips his head back against the barn. It's pleasant outside, and the sun warms the wood beneath him. He glances at Etta, half-expecting her to have already left. But she hasn't.. Instead, she watches him—a calm, steady gaze that would have seemed cold to any man who couldn't see the warmth behind it.

"What do you wish for, Mrs. Armstrong?" He finds himself asking. He doesn't know why.

She smiles at him. Her hair frames her face in soft, gentle waves. "Home," she says. And by God, is there all the weight in the world behind that word. 

"Home," Arthur echoes. It tastes sweet. "Sounds like a dream."

"It is sometimes."

He thinks of Hosea, then. Of Eliza and Isaac. He even thinks of Mary, and the jab in his chest hurts more than the sickness. Etta looks at him some more, sad now. She knows. Somehow, she just knows.

"I think dreaming is what keeps us who we want to be," she says after a while. "That's not always a good thing."

Arthur pictures Dutch, pictures where all his dreaming and planning has gotten them. Hosea, dead. Lenny and Sean, both dead, too. So many lives lost. So many lives, all for a cause Arthur isn't sure ever existed. 

He wonders when he'll join that list. He wonders how long it will get. 

"But," Etta continues, as if reading his thoughts, "sometimes dreaming makes us better." She watches him carefully. "What do _you_ dream of, Mr. Morgan?"

He has to think about it for a moment. He has to think about everything he's ever done, everything he's ever been. And then it comes to him. It's not an easy question, but it has a simple answer.

"The West," he eventually tells her.

She smiles. "A better place."

He nods and smiles back. "A better time."

The carriage arrives from off in the distance, pulling up next to the barn and waiting expectantly for its passenger. Etta stands and dusts off her skirts. 

"I think you'll see the West, Mr. Morgan," she tells him. "I think you'll see a lot of things."

He looks up at her, now little more than a silhouette against the sun. "Not so sure about that," he admits. "Done some bad things, got some bad things handed to me in return."

"You've also done good things." She climbs into the carriage. "And I believe they'll come back to you. You may not always see them, but they're there."

The door shuts and the driver urges the horses forward. Arthur watches the carriage head for Blackwater. It'll keep going, he knows. Further into West Elizabeth, then into New Austin. It'll keep on going west. A better place. A better time. 

He tries not think it's a place he'll never see. He tries not to think it's a time he'll never live. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sad :(


End file.
